Speculation starts on China’s next leaders in 2022

Thoughts have already turned to who among the ‘sixth generation’ might lead the country when Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang retire

By Jonathan Kaiman / The Guardian, BEIJING

At noon on Thursday, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) new seven-person Politburo Standing Committee walked on to a red-carpeted stage at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, ending months, if not years, of speculation over who would make the lineup.

Yet just as US President Barack Obama’s re-election led US pundits to ask who will run in 2016, China watchers are now mulling who might become China’s top leaders when Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) retire in 2022.

For many analysts, this is more than idle guesswork: Understanding the party’s up-and-coming stars means understanding its priorities. They say hopes for political reform, already dulled by the announcement of an overwhelmingly conservative standing committee, are unlikely to be revived by the new generation of leaders. Many of them have been groomed into positions of power by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), a cautious bureaucrat who has long rewarded adherence to the “status quo.”

“Conventional wisdom is the idea that this is the generation that will have more foreign exposure, or a bit more experience abroad, and this will make them more cosmopolitan or outward looking,” said Rana Mitter, a professor of Chinese politics at Oxford University. “I’m not very sure that this is what’s going on here.”

Topping a long list of 2022 hopefuls is Hu Chunhua (胡春華), party secretary of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region — a security maven who is often called “Little Hu” for his close relationship with the president.

Hu Chunhua and Sun, both 49, were named to China’s new 25-member politburo, the country’s top decisionmaking body. Zhou, 52, who once worked in the Ministry of Justice, could become the country’s next top judge, according to the South China Morning Post.

Hu Chunhua, Sun and Zhou belong to the “sixth generation” of CCP leaders since Mao established the People’s Republic of China in 1949. They came of age during Mao’s tumultuous Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 — giving them deep appreciation for political stability.

Xi and Li belong to the fifth generation of leaders; Hu Jintao and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) belong to the fourth.

Bo Zhiyue (薄智躍), an expert on Chinese politics at the National University of Singapore, said that today’s party elites may be more cautious in grooming their successors. Xi and Li leapfrogged to the Politburo Standing Committee five years ago without first sitting on the 25-member politburo, he said.

“I think these people will have to be placed in provincial leadership positions for another four or five years before they move to the central leadership,” Bo said. “They need to gain additional local experience.”

Willy Lam (林和立), a Chinese politics expert at the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, wrote that incentive systems laid out by Hu Jintao make it unlikely that the sixth generation would enact real political change. Third-generation leaders such as former Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) strived to strike a balance between professional competence and communist zeal, he wrote in a 2010 report called Changing of the Guard.